Qualcomm is buying Arduino, the Italian open-source electronics platform behind a spread of boards for tinkerers, DIY hobbyists, and educators, for an undisclosed quantity. In an announcement on Tuesday, Qualcomm says the Arduino “model, instruments, and mission” will stay impartial whereas nonetheless constructing microcontrollers and microprocessors with chips from a number of producers.
Along with the acquisition, Arduino is releasing the Uno Q, a Raspberry Pi-like board that mixes Qualcomm’s Dragonwing QRB2210 processor and a real-time microcontroller. It’s able to working Linux Debian and permits you to plug in a keyboard, mouse, and show with a USB-C dongle. The brand new board additionally helps light-weight AI fashions, permitting for “AI-powered imaginative and prescient and sound options that react to their surroundings in actual time.”
The Uno Q comes with Arduino’s new App Lab pre-installed, which the corporate describes as an “all-in-one improvement surroundings” the place you may handle Arduino Sketches, Python scripts, and AI fashions. The Uno Q costs $44 and is accessible for pre-order beginning immediately.
“The launch of UNO Q is just the start – we’re excited to empower our international neighborhood with highly effective instruments that make AI improvement intuitive, scalable, and open to everybody,” Arduino CEO Fabio Violante stated within the press launch.
Qualcomm provides that the deal will allow the greater than 33 million individuals within the Arduino neighborhood to achieve entry to Qualcomm’s applied sciences. “By combining their open-source ethos with Qualcomm Applied sciences’ portfolio of vanguard merchandise and applied sciences, we’re serving to allow tens of millions of builders to create clever options quicker and extra effectively—together with a path in the direction of international commercialization by leveraging the size of our ecosystem,” Nakul Duggal, Qualcomm’s group normal supervisor of automotive, industrial, and embedded IoT, stated within the press launch.